


更多的狼 / Gèng duō de láng (More Wolves) on Serenity

by Kass



Series: Firefly fanworks [1]
Category: Firefly, Iskryne Series - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
Genre: AU, Episode: s01e01 Serenity, Multi, Psychic Wolves, ep-related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kass/pseuds/Kass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mal, this is Simon Tam, and his wolf Yín bèi," Kaylee says. And doesn't it just figure that a rich guy would have a wolf named Silver? Mal manages not to scowl, but it's a near thing. "Simon, this is our captain, and his wolf Baozhu."</p>
            </blockquote>





	更多的狼 / Gèng duō de láng (More Wolves) on Serenity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Lupercalia 2013. Thanks to Dira for beta!

"Please be careful with that," a man Mal doesn't know calls out to Wash, who's using the mule to load a box into Serenity's cargo hold.

The man's wearing a finely-tailored suit. He looks well-to-do. Mal's not much in the mood to deal with pretty rich boys. Not today, with a sour taste still in his mouth from gorram Badger refusing the fruits of their dishonest labors. But at least there's some coin in their future. Kaylee's got sense; surely she charged this dandy full price for the privilege of spending the next few days on their vessel. There's some comfort in that.

The ash-grey wolf at the man's feet is holding perfectly still but his ears are at full attention. He's as interested in that box of cargo as the man is, if Mal has his guess.

 _Can't smell anything, the box is sealed too tight. Might be protein bars,_ Baozhu thinks, leaning against Mal's hip companionably.

 _Pretty sure it's not,_ Mal sends back, but he ruffles her fur affectionately. Wolves live in hope. It's their nature. He himself, not so much, though his sister hasn't given up on him, and he likes that too. She doesn't quite follow that train of thought, but she can tell he adores her, and she nudges her head against his hand in return.

"Mal, this is Simon Tam, and his wolf Yín bèi," Kaylee says. And doesn't it just figure that a rich guy would have a wolf named Silver? Mal manages not to scowl, but it's a near thing. "Simon, this is our captain, and his wolf Baozhu."

"Captain Reynolds," Simon says, offering his hand to Mal. His grasp is firm, at least, and his hands aren't as soft as Mal expected. And then he kneels to offer his hand to Bao, which is the right thing to do; Mal's slightly mollified. "And Firecracker; an interesting choice. Is that her temperament, or her scent-name?"

"Both," Mal says tersely. Bao sniffs Simon's hand and gives a little whuff of approval, giving Mal Simon's scent-name: _bandages, smoky tea._ Mal reaches toward Silver and lets him sniff in return, learning Mal's scent-name: _sandalwood, gun oil._ The two wolves aren't bristling at each other, so the sniffing is pure formality. Simon and his big silver wolf will be among Serenity's passengers to Boros.

"Are these the only passengers we've got?" Mal asks Kaylee.

She shakes her head. "Two others. One's called Dobson, the other's called Book. Both wolfless."

That'll ease things somewhat. At least they're only adding one wolf to their already cramped quarters. "Okay then," Mal says. "Let's get moving. I want to get off this rock."

* * *

Book turns out to be a Shepherd, which Kaylee should've mentioned. Give a man and his wolf a little warning, why don't you? Baozhu doesn't understand why Mal's so riled up, naturally, but Kaylee ought to know better. Bao sniffs the Shepherd and gives him a scent-name right away -- _onionskin papers edged with gilt_ \-- as though he were part of their pack, which Mal has a mind to argue with, first minute Bao gives him a chance.

And then, because this day just keeps on getting worse, Dobson turns out to be a gorram Fed. When the bastard shoots Kaylee, Mal snaps into combat mode, and so does Bao. Someone's injured a member of their pack and that _hun dan_ is going to pay. The only saving grace is that Simon Tam is a surgeon, which explains the _bandages_ in his scent-name. He may be a gorram civilian, but he's remarkably calm in a crisis.

Mal has no idea how much time they spend in surgery. Everything is crisp and too bright and it's all he can do to filter out Bao's constant awareness of the smells of antiseptic and blood. Little Kaylee's blood. Bao keeps holding on to her scentname -- _engine oil, strawberries_ \-- because even if she's wolfless, she's family.

It's just plain wrong, Kaylee in a situation like this one. She ain't a soldier. She never should've been in the line of fire.

Once she's stable, Mal makes the mistake of imagining that things are finally calming down. And then he kicks the top off of Simon Tam's fancy box, and when the mist clears he sees two bodies, curled up, intertwined. A naked woman -- a girl, really; young and bruised -- and a scrawny wolf with patches shaved into his mottled coat, as though someone's been sticking electrodes to his skin.

Bao stiffens and goes tense beside him, buffeting Mal with waves of _wrong something's wrong wake them up wake them up._

Predictably the girl wakes up and starts screaming, and her wolf wakes up and starts howling, and it's a chaos of people yelling and wolves whining and Jayne wrestling with Simon and Silver growling at Jayne's wolf Musket, who is every bit as big as (and only slightly less dumb than) Jayne himself, and Musket baring his teeth and raising his hackles in response.

Wash's worry comes through the pack-sense loud and clear: _what the hell is going on down there, Konglong is pacing the cockpit like he's on patrol, what does he think he's protecting me from, Mal?_ And then Simon wrests himself free and runs to the girl, and gathers her and the wolf into his arms, murmuring "it's okay, it's okay, I'm here," over and over.

Baozhu calms down, but Mal doesn't. He's pretty certain he's just taken a whole world of trouble onto his ship.

"Simon," the girl wails, clearly terrified. "They -- they talk to me; they want me to talk -- they kept me apart from Yín hé xì, they hurt him, I know they hurt him --"

Yín hé xì: the abused wolf's name is Silver River, what they used to call their own galaxy on Earth-that-Was. Which is vaguely interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the fact that Silver River looks like he's trying to maintain as much contact with the naked girl as possible, and vice versa.

If she weren't obviously female -- and she is, even if Mal's doing everything he can to avoid getting an eyefull -- Mal would read them as a soldier and his wolfbrother injured in combat, each desperate for physical reassurance that the other is okay. But women don't have wolfbrothers.

"We're safe now," Simon is repeating inanely. His hands are all over both of them, the girl and the wolf. Stroking, calming.

"What the hell is this?" Mal asks. Because he agreed to take on a couple of paying passengers, but one of them was not supposed to be a Fed, and the other one was not supposed to be a gorram smuggler, and for damn sure there was not supposed to be a woman and a wolf tangled up inside that box.

"This," Simon says, "is my sister River, and her brother-wolf."

Mal can't come up with an appropriate response; he's reeling. 

"That cain't happen," Jayne blusters. Then he turns to Mal. "Can it, Mal?"

"Apparently," Mal says, "it can." He turns to the tableau of Simon clutching his naked sister and her malnourished wolf. "Doc? You'd better be able to explain."

* * *

Once River is sedated, and her wolf is huddled at her feet (awake but calm), Simon tells the story of how the two of them came to bond. (Baozhu supplies the injured wolf's scent-name: _koi pond, incense, moonlit night._ ) His voice goes flat when he tells them about the so-called school that courted River and her brother-wolf. He doesn't need to tell them what kinds of torture the Alliance inflicted; it's obvious from looking at River and her wolf that they were ill-treated indeed.

As much as Mal and the other humans on board try to keep their horror tamped down, some of what they're feeling comes through to their wolves. Unease and anger hum through the Serenity pack-sense like engine vibrations. _Dàodǐ shì shuí zuò de_ , the Alliance are worse than even Mal suspected.

Then there's a run-in with Reavers, about which the less said the better. The mere mention of those crazy bastards sets Mal's skin to crawling, and Bao doesn't like them any more than Mal does. Considerably less, in fact. Wolves can't understand what would make a person do the things that Reavers do. Come to think on it, Mal can't either.

But getting free of the Reavers involves burning fuel. Even with paying passengers on board, they're short on coin, and the cargo that Badger refused ain't making them any safer. They settle on Patience as the best of their bad options. Mal isn't particularly surprised when Patience threatens to shoot them and skin their wolves. Not happy about it, but it's not exactly a shock. At least that story ends with her pinned beneath her horse and Mal holding a bag of coin. 

And then Mal takes out the Fed. He can't help feeling more'n a little satisfaction at ridding the 'verse of one more Alliance hack.

Thanks to Wash and some mighty fancy flying, they escape the Reavers a second time, which has got to be some kind of record.

The only thing that mars the beautiful end of that day is Jayne allowing as how the only reason he didn't sell Mal out was that the coin wasn't good enough. Well: that's his claim. Mal suspects he's getting skittish being part of a pack, wants to split before Baozhu can decide to cut him out. As though she, or Mal, would do that. Though if Jayne keeps claiming he's more loyal to his purse than to his pack and his ship, Mal's going to get more than a mite prickly. Mal tries to keep his annoyance tamped down, though, not wanting to broadcast his exasperation through the ship.

And then Simon Tam comes in, and Mal straightens his spine and prepares himself for a conversation he still isn't entirely certain he wants to have.

* * *

"So where do you plan on dumping us?" Simon's voice is crisp and Silver is silent at his heels.

 _Come on,_ Bao wheedles, and Mal sighs and gives in.

"There's places you might be safe," he allows, "but you want the truth, you're probably safer on the move. And we never stop moving." He hopes against hope that that's enough of an invitation; he is in no way looking forward to making this more explicit. It's embarrassing enough, asking the doc and his sister to stay onboard after all the suspicion he's aimed their way.

Simon does not oblige. "I'm confused," he says, then amends it to, "no, wait, I think _you're_ confused."

"It may have become apparent to you that the ship could use a medic."

Simon refrains from rolling his eyes, but it's obviously a near thing. Silver whuffs out a breath and settles onto the floor. Simon returns Mal's dry sarcasm: "It may have become apparent to _you_ that we're magnets for trouble."

Mal shrugs. "Running from the Alliance ain't exactly new for us."

Simon nods a little, accepting that. "There are...other considerations," he says.

"That there are," Mal acknowledges, "but Baozhu's in favor."

"Expanding her pack from two wolves to four," Simon says, and Mal's pretty sure he's working hard at sounding casual and disinterested. "That's not trivial."

"I think she can handle it." Mal scowls, because that's the easiest way of ignoring the butterflies in his own stomach at the prospect of Bao's next heat cycle. Jayne and Wash, that's one thing, they've been with him a while now. But he still barely knows Simon Tam, and River looks to be a hundred pounds of crazy in a ninety-pound sack, and how can they be certain her wolf isn't every bit as damaged or strange after what the Alliance did to them?

Not to mention the...logistical...intricacies of letting a woman into the hold during heat. Zoe always takes command while Mal and Bao are in the throes of it, and she's the one who lets Wash and Konglong, Jayne and Musket, into the hold one pair at a time. (Which is just fine with Bao; she trusts Zoe -- _leather and wine_ \-- as much as Mal does.) Mal is already not looking forward to telling her that her job's about to get a lot more complicated.

And as for Inara -- Mal can't help flushing all over, thinking of how Inara is going to look at him when she hears the news. As though she can see right through the way he needles her about the way she makes her living.

He resents what she does because she does it for the sheer pleasure, and she isn't ashamed, not even a little bit. Maybe it's his upbringing, all that doctrine he swears he doesn't believe anymore, but he can't help feeling a hot flush of guilt about how much he likes it when Bao's cravings force his shame aside. He's not supposed to look forward to losing himself for days at a time in the thick fog of want, deliciously filled and fulfilled. Fucked until his wolf is satisfied. 

But Bao has no such ambivalence. Baozhu knows what she wants. And she's made it perfectly clear that as far as she's concerned, these two wolves and their humans are her responsibility. Which means they're also Mal's.

If that means he's going to have to put up with the surgeon's fine steady hands on him from time to time (and his cock, and River's quim, though Mal is doing everything in his power not to think about that right at this moment), that's going to have to be his problem. And Mal owes it to his sister not to kick up a fuss, because she lost pack and pups alike at Serenity Valley, and if she wants these two, there's got to be good reason.

"Okay," Simon says at last.

"'Okay?'" Mal repeats. "Is that all you've got?" He can hear the disbelief in his own voice: I just opened up my ship and my body to you, and that's all you're going to say? Bao grins in her wolfish way and headbutts his hip. He can feel her laughing.

"Okay, we'll join your crew," Simon offers. There's a hint of a smile in his eye. "Are you always this sentimental?"

"Had a good day," Mal says blithely. He can't help smiling back, just the littlest bit. Besides, Bao's tail is thumping on the corrugated metal floor, so it's not as though he can really pretend to be displeased. She's not particularly interested in his poker face.

"You had the Alliance on you, criminals and savages... half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded including yourself, you're harboring known fugitives, and you just agreed to take on two wolves you barely know."

Mal shrugs. "We're still flying."

"That's not much," Simon objects.

"It's enough," Mal says firmly. And, before he can lose courage, he tells Bao _go ahead, they said yes._

 _Pack!_ she thinks joyfully, and jumps up to nose at his shoulder. Mal doesn't know how she does it, but the pack-sense opens up, as though four more voices, four more presences, had logged on to their own private Cortex.

Silver River's _Koi pond, incense, moonlit night_ and his human sister's _river water flowing fast over stones_ \-- Silver's _woodsmoke, winter night_ and his human brother's _bandages, smoky tea_ \-- the new scent-names mingle with Bao's _firecrackers on a hot night_ and Mal's _sandalwood and gun oil_ , Konglong's _plastic toys and corduroy_ and Wash's _pineapple and clouded sake_ , Musket's _cordite, grass, grenade_ and Jayne's _wool and malt liquor_. And Kaylee, and Zoe, and even the gorram Shepherd.

Part of the Serenity pack.


End file.
